The Moving Target (1949)

This is the very first mystery from the excellent Lew Archer series by Ross MacDonald. It lives up to the hype! ( )

הראשון בסדרת לו ארצ'ר ( )

J'ai adoré ce livre. L'intrigue tient debout, mais ce qui m'a surtout retenu, c'est le style, impeccable, l'humour, l'air de ne pas y toucher, les détails des années 50, cette ambiance légèrement surannée, qui ne retire rien au côté très moderne de l'œuvre. Je salive déjà à la perspective de découvrir d'autres livres de Ross MacDonald et, surtout, les autres aventures de son privé Lew Archer. ( )

This book reminds me of the writing of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, but I feel that MacDonald does a better job with the characters and the plot. I kept expecting to see Humphrey Bogart as Detective Lew Archer. The book was adapted into a movie, but Paul Newman filled the role of Detective Archer. The movie is Harper that also starred Lauren Bacall. As I read the book, many scenes of the movie emerged. Archer, as a detective, seems too trusting. His trust hinders his judgment. That hindrance complicates many issues. The story follows many of the film noire standards. I feel compelled to sample some more of MacDonald's writing. ( )

This is the first volume in Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer series. I have read a number of the later books in the series and Lew Archer doesn't change very much. This book does provide some background for Archer and one of the characters is an old friend of his.
Archer says he does a lot of divorce work but in the books I have read he is generally hired to find somebody. In this book he is hired to find Ralph Sampson, a rich man who made his money in the oil business. He is hired by Sampson's wife who is afraid he might give away something valuable while he is drunk. She doesn't care about his safety she is just waiting for him to die so she can get his money. Very quickly the family gets a ransom note and the case becomes a kidnapping. The cast of characters includes an aging actress, a Hollywood hood, Sampson's daughter, his lawyer and his pilot.
Archer starts looking for Sampson at the airport where his private pilot dropped him off. Then he goes bar crawling with the aging actress who is also Sampson's astrologer. He drops off the actress and goes to a Hollywood dive where the piano player has him beat up because she thinks he's a narc. All of this is standard fare for a Lew Archer mystery but MacDonald keeps the plot moving and throws in some very good dialogue.
Archer does find Sampson but anything else would require a spoiler alert. MacDonald's style is very similar to Raymond Chandler and I enjoy his writing. This is not the best Lew Archer mystery but I found it very entertaining. ( )